A Dreaming God
by JLake4
Summary: October Afterlife Contest Entry Cerberus has discovered a derelict Reaper in the orbit of the brown dwarf Mnemosyne. A science team is subsequently dispatched to scour the wreckage in search of the integral Reaper IFF tag, and this is their story.
1. Chapter 1

_"There is a great difference between mind and body, inasmuch as body is by nature always divisible, and the mind is entirely indivisible."-Rene Descartes_

* * *

"What's that hum?" one of the aides asked, I wasn't sure which.

"What hum?" I replied, honestly. I hadn't heard a hum, perhaps it was an issue in the lighting system. This whole research base just came online two days ago.

"Never mind then, doctor," his research aide said after a moment, shaking his head.

I walked across the sterile white floors of the lab and activated my console. "Dr. Chandana, research log entry #004. Base finally operational. The search has begun for the Reaper Identify Friend/Foe tag, though progress is slow. We don't know where to start, much less how to identify it when we find it. If we find it. Meanwhile, we've got to shore up the electrical systems, there's some buzzing people are complaining of. I haven't heard it yet, but whatever I can do to put people at ease should be done, given we're inside of a galaxy-destroying robot."

I deactivated the console and looked at my research assistant. He looked pretty pale, paler than usual that is.

"Are you feeling alright?" I asked.

"No," he replied bluntly.

"Do you need the night off?" I continued.

"No," he replied again.

"If you say so," I replied, ending the conversation.

"Can I get off?" another assistant asked.

"No," I replied flatly.

"What was that doctor?" the aide asked.

"You can have off but he…" I turned around. No one was there. Footsteps echoed in the hall. The aide cocked an eyebrow and went back to work. I thought for a moment, and wrote it off as a prank. Damn these kids, never taking this work seriously.

I went back to poring over the maps of the inside of the Reaper. There wasn't much to be seen- it looked like a big squid, made of some incomprehensible metal, if it was metal. It was devilishly hard to get a sample of it, and when they did the machinery just turned up a big question mark.

It was maddening to look at. Somehow all at once it seemed absolutely opaque but in the right light it looked translucent, with maybe a few centimeters of semi clear material on top of the real black metal. On top of it all it glinted like an oil slick, playing off your eyes and giving you a migraine if you stared too long.

Inside of it, we felt it pressing down on us. The atmosphere was oppressive, and even in the open areas it felt claustrophobic. It was alien in truly every sense of the word.

The ship groaned every so often, the stress of being held just barely in limbo around a failed star must be taking a toll by now, after several million years. The trouble was, those groans came when you were alone at night, or on your way to the bathroom, or trying to fall asleep. They always seemed to happen when it was at the quietest point.

After my assistant Carl's outburst, I decided I would call it a night for both of us. We left the lab and the relief team came in behind us, and as we proceeded down the corridor toward the bunk room several security officers passed us talking quietly among themselves.

I turned to Carl. "If you're feeling sick, I want you to take time off. I can't have you working at under 100% on this expedition."

"I'm fine, I want to keep searching. There's something fascinating about this ship, how… alien it is. It's like every day I'm researching I find something else that blows my mind about it," Carl said, perking up a bit.

"That a boy," I said, patting him on the shoulder. He found his bunk and flopped down onto it, falling asleep minutes later.

First, I had something else I needed to do. I returned to the lab, nodding to the two lab assistants curtly. I was midway through searching the most recent scans of the eezo core, and figured if I could bump those out we could get the hell out of here a day sooner. So, ignoring my biological clock screaming at me to go to sleep, I began poring over the scans again.

By morning, six hours later, I hadn't found much. The ship was mostly chasms and catwalks, and nearly impossible to navigate. The real mystery was where all the damned chasms went. The IFF tag could be hidden down any number of pits littering the ship, not to mention the gaping hole ripped through the superstructure by whatever mass accelerator hit it millennia ago.

There was a lot of searching to do.

Another shift of scientists replaced the old ones and I finally decided to get some sleep.

* * *

_This is chapter 1 of 3 for the Aria's Afterlife Forum October writing competition._ _With luck, it'll get spookier. This is just the intro :P _

_Thanks, JLake4_


	2. Chapter 2

_Wake up_

I awoke with a start several hours later, the feeling like I'd forgotten something nagging at my mind. As far as the scans went, I thought I'd gotten everything.

With that thought, I rose and went back to the lab. The scientists were supposed to work in pairs, but I only saw one lab technician.

"Where's your partner?" I asked, walking into the lab. The tech standing there visibly jumped, his hands shaking.

"I don't know, he slipped out a few minutes ago," the tech said.

"What's your name?" I asked.

"It's…" he began. "Ednit Chandana?"

"What?" I asked before I could recover. "That's my name, not yours."

"I don't remember," the tech said.

I went out into the hall and flagged down a security guard. "Get this man to Medical."

"Yes, sir," the soldier said, taking the scientist by the arm and leading him from the room.

_What the hell is going on?_ I asked myself. _That kid went nuts._

Then I heard it. The buzzing set in, in the back of my mind, clouding my thoughts. I shook my head and the buzzing cleared up, but it left me shaken. What _was_ that? Clearly it wasn't an electrical problem, because it came from… inside of my mind?

"Find out where his partner went!" I called after the soldier and the stricken scientist.

I turned around and entered the lab, looking over what the man was looking at before he snapped. It was my eezo core scan, but with something circled on it, and several different areas were colored in red. It was two circles and a semi circle, drawn across the chamber. In the central circle was the eezo core itself…

My back started to hurt as I leaned over the scan, pondering it. I straightened up suddenly, looking at the clock. It was 12:30? How was that possible?

"Doctor?" I heard the timid voice of Carl calling. "Are you okay, doctor? Unlock the door!"

I turned around and saw the door had closed behind me, locking shut. Baffled, I went over and unlocked it, watching the black and orange Cerberus emblem slide away and reveal the sunken eyes of Carl.

"What happened, doctor? Why did you lock yourself in?" Carl asked.

"I didn't lock myself in, the door closed behind me!" I shouted. I blinked a few times and realized I was yelling. "Sorry."

"It's alright doctor. We have to get back to work, we need to find that IFF," Carl said, something in his eyes not quite right. I couldn't put my finger on it, though. They looked… hungry.

"Yes, we do," I agreed. I found it hard to meet Carl's eyes.

"Where did we leave off?" Carl asked.

"Just checked out the eezo core area last night," I said distantly, staring at the schematics and scans again. All the wires lead to one point: the heart, the eezo core. It had to be there.

I turned and hit my omni tool, bringing up the messaging interface.

_Work order: _

_Extend external scaffolding to the core of the ship. This takes priority._

_Chandana_

"I think it's in the eezo core," I told Carl.

Carl nodded emphatically. "It must be."

"We'll get there in a few days, for now we just sit tight and wait for the workers to build the scaffolding," I said calmly. My mind was restless though. _What else could this reaper tell us? _

Carl gripped his head tightly, letting out a shriek of pain.

"What is it? What the hell's happening?" I shouted, hearing the footsteps of a guard running up the hall.

"My head… it feels like its being torn apart!" Carl groaned through tightly gritted teeth.

"Sit down! What's wrong?" I said.

"It's my head, Doctor!" Carl repeated.

"Just take a min…" the pain shot through my own head now, emanating from the inside out. "Gah! Why?"

I fell to my knees alongside Carl, both of us gripping our heads and moaning.

Then it stopped. My mind was clear again, just like that.

"It's the ship, Doctor, it has to be," Carl grunted, getting back to his feet uneasily. He braced himself against the table and rubbed his temples with his free hand.

"Nonsense," I said. "The thing is dead. It has been for 37 million years."

"I believe you Doctor, but there's no way… nggghhh! Agh!" Carl dropped again to his knees, gripping his head between his hands.

"Get up, Carl," I said, grabbing him by the shoulder and hefting him to his feet. He still clutched his head in his free hand. "Hold it together."

"I'm… trying," Carl said. He shook his head again and coughed once or twice, and I saw bloodstained spittle drip from his mouth.

"Sit down," I said, pushing him into the seat. He wiped the corner of his mouth with the sleeve of his lab coat.

"I'll be okay, Doctor," Carl said, waving me off.

"Alright, just get back on your feet as soon as possible. We have 2 kilometers of behemoth to search," I said quickly, moving to another page. It was further up the superstructure from the eezo core, and it just didn't _feel_ right.

"Doctor?" a voice called from the door.

I turned around to face a guard. "What is it?"

"We can't find the technician who went missing last night," the guard reported.

"He probably fell over the side of one of the catwalks," I suggested.

"It's possible," the guard said. "But we're missing seven other scientists."

"Seven?" I asked, nearly shouting again. _What the hell?_

"They all went missing last night. Most of them were tasked with examining the metal, if I remember right," the guard said.

"Turn out all the guards. I want them found," I ordered.

"Yes, sir," the guard said, running off.

I turned around, massaging my temples. What the hell was happening? How had I lost eight technicians?

"We found them, they're all dead."

I wheeled around rapidly, but the guard wasn't there. I inhaled sharply and rubbed my forehead. I should've slept more last night._ I need a nap_.

"Carl, I'm going to take a quick nap," I said abruptly. Carl merely nodded, now looking over the scans again.

I stumbled through the door, listening to that buzzing again, unable to shake it. I manage to collapse into my bunk, falling into a shallow and uneasy sleep.

_There is a burning city upon a hill shards of crystal littering the earth around the shattered skyscrapers. Bodies lay charred everywhere stacked in grotesque heaps. Screams echo up the valleys as monsters stalk through the night smiting them with fire. I stride among the bodies (burning writhing) on the ground screams choked from their blistered throats mouths frozen open in noiseless screams_

_I turn a corner and face four sickly yellow eyes on a black body (staring accusing) beckoning for me to join them as the screams rise to a crescendo and the monsters converge_

I rolled out of the bed and onto the floor, seeing scarcely twenty minutes have passed. My body is soaked with cold sweat and my mind is reeling from that images I'd just seen. They were more real than any nightmare I'd ever had.

"Message to all Research Assistants and Scientists: No further time off will be given for anything short of a mental breakdown. Finding this IFF tag is of paramount importance and must be done in short order," I transmitted to the omni-tools of everyone on the station.

The buzzing came back, continuing the siege on my mind. This time it left easily as I stood and returned to the lab without changing, still drenched in sweat. I had to find the IFF to get the hell off of here.

* * *

_Here's Chapter 2! Get ready for the finale everyone who played ME2 knows is coming._


	3. Chapter 3

"Agh! What the hell is that?" Carl shouted, pointing at the wall.

"What are you talking about?" I asked, running a hand over my forehead and back through my short black hair.

"There was a spider or something on the wall," he said breathlessly. "But I took my eyes off it and now it's gone."

"That's how spiders work," I said distantly, returning to the pictures of the exterior of their ship's hull.

"It was a big one," Carl said, also returning to his work. _Good_, I thought. _No delays, we have to escape_.

It struck me then. How was there a spider on this station? They couldn't have brought one with them; spiders didn't do well in space due to the lack of prey flying blindly into their webs.

I pushed back from the table and let my eyes readjust to seeing something not four inches from my face. The room was a white blur for a few moments, with the grey shape of Carl moving around at the other table, along with the multicolored shapes of the other assistants going about their business. I'd called everyone in after the nightmare.

Finally my eyes adjusted and I walked over to the wall Carl had pointed at. I searched along it either way and saw nothing, not in the corners or along the floor. The air duct!

I looked down and saw something small and black slide through the slats in the vent. I returned to my station and grabbed a screwdriver and started backing the screws out of the vent cover, throwing it to the side and shoving my head in along with my omni-tool and the flashlight it generated.

Nothing. I exhaled slowly and stood up, dusting myself off. I turned and saw Carl staring down at me. I grabbed hold of his shoulder, hoisting myself up using the red fabric. It was a civilian lab coat, but I'd permit it. Whatever gets the work done is fine by me.

"What were you looking for, Doctor?" Carl asked.

"The spider," I replied flatly. Carl cocked his head and walked away, back to his station.

"What a nutcase," I heard him whisper.

"What did you call me?" I asked sharply.

"I didn't say anything," Carl replied, his voice innocent. His eyes weren't, but his voice was.

"You called me a nutcase," I accused.

Carl went white as a sheet- even more pallid, which I hadn't thought was possible. "I didn't say that, Doctor, I _thought_ that."

I missed the point entirely at first, shouting about how he shouldn't talk about the project lead like that. Then I realized the enormity of that point. "How did I just hear your thoughts?"

"I don't know, Doctor," Carl said, returning to his work, what color there was returning to his face.

At first I thought about taking another nap, but the idea of facing that nightmare again was daunting. I left the lab and walked through the halls, passing a guard and seeing another bounding toward me.

"Doctor Chandana! We found the missing scientists!" he said, looking like he'd seen a ghost.

"Where are they? Can they work?" I asked nonchalantly. My mind was still on the vast ship we were attached to.

"No, they can't," the guard replied, straightening his posture.

"Why?" I asked the obvious follow-up.

"Follow me, doctor," he said. I realized he was in full battle armor rated for vacuum when we reached the airlock and he opened the inner door, leading me through and shutting it behind us. I pulled an environmental suit on and the chamber depressurized, allowing us out onto the catwalks. The guard led me to one of the many field research platforms along the catwalks and pointed out into an inky black chamber beyond the railing.

"I don't see anything," I said after a few moments of squinting into the darkness.

"Watch," the guard said dreamily, raising his wrist and projecting a beam of light out into the black.

What it revealed scarred me. There were bodies- half a dozen of them—impaled on spikes that now ran black with their blood. Their twisted faces stared back, eyes glowing blue and their skin an awful mélange of grey and skin tones. "What the hell happened here?" I gasped, looking at how the vacuum had warped their skin and turned it grey.

"I don't know," the guard said. "But we can't get them down. We lost a man trying." He pointed at an armored figure impaled by a spike toward the front. "He was trying to see how they activated, to disarm them. Leaned over it and it slashed right through his armor and barriers."

"Cordon them off. Nobody goes near the traps," I ordered, the images of their staring blue eyes lingering in my memory. I turned to leave when the humming started again, growing to eclipse all thought. I merely rubbed at my head again, feeling only the environmental suit.

"Something's wrong here," the guard opined from behind me.

"I don't think so," my mouth said. "It's a little creepy, sure, but I don't know if anything sinister is at work."

I shook my head briefly and tried to recant what I'd just said, but nothing happened. My mouth seemed frozen, and opening it resulted in brief but severe pain.

"If you say so, doc," the guard said, moving ahead to open the door to the airlock.

"I do," my mouth said.

_I don't!_ my mind screamed.

I took off the environmental suit and proceeded back into the labs. In the airlock, the guard closed the internal door, and I heard the chamber depressurize again.

The walk back to the lab was a short one. I returned to my place, standing and staring at the picture on the table.

_Fl khn'yy bk mhn s'll mhst rht_

Whispers at the back of my mind, attacking the part still fighting for control.

**_Fhk' nyl brzhj dh'n' Brzh ztn' ws pln_**

I fought to retain my grip on my mind, while my body stood motionless.

**FLZH'NHLL DN'H'BLK DZKH LSK **

There was a jolt that ran through my body, starting in the mind. It was inaudible and invisible, but a fundamental change came.

Images of the monsters from my dream flashed before my eyes, the glowing points of light piercing into my mind. I felt I was losing ground despite the desperation with which I fought. The buzzing grew to obscure my sense of hearing and finally the image of the spike traps flashed before I couldn't fight anymore.

I saw my body push back from the table, casting furtive glances at the other researchers while they ignored it. The feet carried me toward the airlock, where the environmental suit my body had just removed was still hanging. As it put it on, I realized I felt no sensation at its application.

The outer door opened as soon as depressurization was complete, and I saw the guard walking along the path. He turned as the airlock opened again, his white and yellow armor glinting in the light passed through the exterior of the ship.

"Doctor? What's wrong?" he asked as my body marched toward him.

"My God is not dead," my lips said. Then my hand lashed out and grabbed his sidearm, putting two mass accelerator rounds into his knees before he could react. My body dragged his to the platform and threw him over the side, jumping after him itself. They both landed on the slick black floor of whatever this chamber was, and my body picked his writhing form off of the ground and dragging it to the traps.

Then, to my horror, my arms hoisted him over the tripod and a spike shot through his chest, spraying blood across the facemask of the environmental suit. He stopped moving as the spike reached its full height.

My eyes turned and regarded silently the forms of a dozen or so research crewmen standing along the railing of the catwalk. My body deactivated the nearest of the spikes, releasing the desiccated glowing bodies of my former employees onto the ground. They let out empty howls and ran into the reaper.

A half dozen researchers hopped down, floating lightly to the ground in the weaker gravity. They each positioned themselves above a spike and waited, each getting their wish momentarily. Quietly they accepted their ascendance.

There was one spike left. My body strode toward it, lying across the top. For a split second I had time to be thankful I had no sensation, then I saw the ground race away and all thought stopped.

* * *

Alone in the research room, Carl clutched at his head, his grip getting weaker. The research team had just filed out of the room silently, and he'd felt the order to do so but somehow managed to resist. He stumbled to Dr. Chandana's console and activated it, starting the recorder.

"Chandana said the ship was dead. We trusted him. He was right. But even a dead god can dream. A god — a real god — is a verb. Not some old man with magic powers. It's a force. It warps reality just by being there. It doesn't have to want to. It doesn't have to think about it. It just does. That's what Chandana didn't get. Not until it was too late. The god's mind is gone but it still dreams. He knows now. He's tuned in on our dreams. If I close my eyes I can feel him. I can feel every one of us."

His warning recorded, Carl's mind gave in and his body strode out to join the others, standing in line on the platform while the spikes did their work.


End file.
